East Asia
A country so large that its bullet trains cover the distance of Western Europe, with three thousand years of continuous history at one end of the line and neon megacities at the other.
China is not one trip, it is several, and the country's own scale is the first thing to plan around. Beijing to Hong Kong is further than London to Moscow; Shanghai to the karst country of Guangxi is further than Paris to Athens. What makes this manageable rather than overwhelming is the high-speed rail network, the largest in the world, which turns journeys that would once have taken a day and a night into a comfortable few hours at 300 km/h.
The historical depth is different in kind from a European trip. Xi'an was the imperial capital when Rome was still a republic. The written language on shopfronts today descends, largely unbroken, from characters carved on oracle bones three thousand years ago. And yet the same country builds cities faster than anywhere on earth — Shenzhen was a fishing town in 1980 and is now a tech capital of seventeen million people, and Shanghai's Pudong skyline, all glass towers and a rocket-shaped observation deck, did not exist before 1990.
The practical texture of travel here is also its own thing, and worth knowing before you land rather than discovering on day one. Cash has largely given way to Alipay and WeChat Pay, both now usable by foreign cards with a little setup. Google, Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram and most Western apps and sites do not work without a VPN installed before arrival. And English drops off sharply outside Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, which makes a translation app and a hotel business card in Chinese two of the most useful things you will carry.
Where to go
Ordered roughly by how strongly we would recommend each for a first visit — though the karst landscapes, the sandstone pillars of Zhangjiajie and the southwestern regions repay a second trip more than a fourth palace complex would.
Beijing Municipality
China's capital for most of the last eight centuries, where a walled Ming palace, tai-chi parks and some of the country's best duck sit inside a modern megacity of 22 million.
Don't miss The Forbidden City — 980 buildings and nearly 9,000 rooms, the seat of Chinese emperors for nearly five hundred years.
Explore Destination — BeijingShaanxi
China's ancient capital for eleven dynasties and over a thousand years, where an emperor's buried army meets a walled old city and the best street food in the country.
Don't miss The Terracotta Army — over 8,000 individually sculpted life-size warriors, discovered by farmers digging a well in 1974.
Explore Destination — Xi'anShanghai Municipality
China's financial capital and its most international city, where a preserved 1920s waterfront stares across the river at a skyline that is barely three decades old.
Don't miss The Bund at dusk — a row of 1920s European banking houses facing the futuristic towers of Pudong across the Huangpu River.
Explore Destination — ShanghaiGuangxi
China's most photographed landscape: limestone karst peaks by the thousand, a slow river cruise between two towns, and rice-paddy cycling at the quieter end.
Don't miss The Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo — four hours drifting between thousands of forested karst peaks rising straight out of the water.
Explore Destination — Guilin & YangshuoHunan
China's strangest national park: over three thousand sandstone pillars, a glass bridge slung between two cliffs, and the tallest outdoor elevator on earth.
Don't miss The Avatar Hallelujah Mountain — a needle-thin sandstone pillar wreathed in cloud that directly inspired the floating mountains of Avatar.
Explore Destination — ZhangjiajieSichuan
Sichuan's capital, where giant pandas, the country's spiciest food and an unhurried pace of life make the case for slowing an itinerary down.
Don't miss The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding — dozens of pandas, from newborn cubs to full-grown adults, in naturalistic enclosures best seen at their most active in the early morning.
Explore Destination — ChengduHong Kong Special Administrative Region
A Special Administrative Region of China with its own laws, currency and border, where dense high-rise city meets green mountains, fishing villages and some of the best dim sum on earth.
Don't miss The Star Ferry crossing Victoria Harbour at dusk — the cheapest, best view in the city, skyscrapers lighting up on both shores at once.
Explore Destination — Hong KongYunnan
China's most ethnically diverse province, where a UNESCO-listed canal town, snow-capped mountains and terraced valleys sit far from the country's historic east-coast centres.
Don't miss Lijiang's Old Town at dawn — canal-lined cobbled lanes and Naxi-style wooden houses, quiet before the day's crowds arrive.
Explore Destination — Lijiang & YunnanAnhui
The mountain that shaped a thousand years of Chinese landscape painting, with Ming and Qing-dynasty villages preserved almost untouched at its base.
Don't miss Sunrise over Huangshan's sea of clouds — granite peaks breaking through mist below the summit hotels, the single image most associated with classical Chinese landscape painting.
Explore Destination — Huangshan & the Anhui VillagesJiangsu & Zhejiang
Two canal-and-lake cities under ninety minutes from Shanghai, one built around the most celebrated classical gardens in China, the other around a lake that has shaped a thousand years of poetry.
Don't miss The Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou — the largest and most celebrated classical garden in China, its pavilions, ponds and rockeries composed like a three-dimensional painting.
Explore Destination — Suzhou & HangzhouExperiences
The experiences that recur across the country and that make a China trip feel like China rather than a checklist of monuments.
Over 45,000 km of dedicated high-speed track, more than the rest of the world combined, running at up to 350 km/h between city centres. Beijing to Shanghai in under five hours is the single best demonstration of what modern China has built.
Tip Book through Trip.com or 12306's English site. Second-class seats are perfectly comfortable; only pay for first class on very long runs.
Google, Gmail, Maps, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X and most Western news sites are blocked by the Great Firewall. A VPN installed and tested before you cross the border is the only reliable fix, since VPN provider websites are themselves often blocked once you are inside.
Tip Pick a paid VPN with a China-specific mode and install it at home. Free VPNs and last-minute downloads at the airport routinely fail.
China is close to cashless. Small vendors, taxis and street food stalls increasingly cannot break a large note or may simply not want cash at all. Both apps now let foreign visitors link an international Visa or Mastercard directly.
Tip Set this up before you arrive, with your passport and card ready — it takes ten minutes and saves constant friction for the whole trip.
Sichuan numbs with huajiao pepper, Guangdong steams and stir-fries lightly, the northeast pickles and grills, Yunnan cooks with mushrooms and herbs found nowhere else. Ordering 'Chinese food' anywhere in China is like ordering 'European food' in Rome.
Tip Look for restaurants full of locals with no English menu. Point at what the next table is eating if you have to.
Parks fill before seven with tai chi, ballroom dancing, sword forms, badminton played against nothing and choirs singing revolutionary songs. It is the most unguarded, least touristed hour China offers, and it happens in every city, every day.
Tip Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing and People's Park in Chengdu are the two best-known stages for this, but any city park works.
For journeys the high-speed line has not reached, an overnight soft-sleeper — four bunks to a compartment, a thermos of hot water for tea or instant noodles — is a genuine experience rather than just transport, and it saves a hotel night.
Tip Book soft sleeper (软卧) over hard sleeper for real privacy and a door. Bring your own snacks and toilet paper.
Fixed-price shops need no haggling, but tourist markets expect it — start at forty to fifty percent of the asking price and meet somewhere in the middle, in good humour rather than confrontation.
Tip Panjiayuan in Beijing and the fabric markets of Shanghai are both fun for this, purchases or not.
Food and drink
There is no single Chinese cuisine, only eight or more major regional traditions that a lifetime of eating in China would not exhaust. These are the threads that run through the country.
Lacquered, air-dried and roasted until the skin shatters, then carved at the table and wrapped in thin pancakes with spring onion, cucumber and sweet bean sauce. Beijing's signature dish and worth booking ahead for at the well-known houses.
Where to try it Beijing, at Quanjude or Da Dong for the full ceremony, or a neighbourhood duck house for half the price.
Soup dumplings, folded by hand and holding a mouthful of scalding broth inside a thin skin, eaten with a spoon to catch the first bite. Shanghai's broader snack culture — scallion pancakes, sheng jian bao, sweet tofu pudding — is a meal in itself.
Where to try it Shanghai's old town and Yu Garden bazaar, or Din Tai Fung for a reliably excellent version anywhere in the country.
A pot of chilli- and Sichuan-peppercorn-laced broth kept boiling at the table, into which you cook thin-sliced meat, tofu and vegetables. The peppercorns produce mala — a tingling numbness alongside the heat, not simple spice.
Where to try it Chengdu or Chongqing, at any hotpot restaurant packed with locals at 9pm.
Biang biang noodles — hand-pulled, wide as a belt, tossed in chilli oil — and roujiamo, a flatbread stuffed with slow-braised pork often called China's answer to the hamburger, both native to Shaanxi and best eaten standing up.
Where to try it Xi'an's Muslim Quarter, from any stall with a queue of locals rather than tour groups.
Small steamed and fried plates — har gow, siu mai, char siu bao, egg tarts — ordered from a trolley or a checklist and shared over tea, traditionally a late-morning ritual rather than a quick lunch.
Where to try it Hong Kong or Guangzhou, ideally before 11am on a weekend, when it is still a family occasion rather than a tourist sitting.
Wild mushrooms foraged from Yunnan's forests, cooked simply, and guoqiao mixian — a scalding broth sealed with a layer of oil, into which raw meat, egg and rice noodles are stirred tableside and cooked in seconds.
Where to try it Kunming or Lijiang, where both are regional specialities rather than imports.
Green, oolong, pu'er and white teas each with their own region, brewing temperature and ritual — gongfu-style brewing uses a small pot, repeated short infusions and cups the size of a shot glass rather than a mug of one long steep.
Where to try it A teahouse in Chengdu's parks, or Hangzhou, the historic home of Longjing green tea.
Before you go
The essentials, current for 2026. China is safe and increasingly easy to navigate, with two exceptions that catch first-time visitors out: connectivity, and payments.
Excludes international flights. Figures are typical rather than absolute — cities and peak season run higher.
When to go
China spans subtropical Hainan to sub-Arctic Heilongjiang, so 'the best time' depends on which China. The two national holiday weeks are worth avoiding almost everywhere regardless of season.
Mild and increasingly green across the eastern and central cities, with the Guilin karst and Yunnan at their most comfortable. The main exception to avoid within this window is the first week of May, a national holiday.
Hot and often humid in the east and centre — Xi'an and Chengdu regularly exceed 35°C — and the wettest season in the south. The mountains (Zhangjiajie, the Tibetan plateau areas) and the northeast are the exceptions and are at their best.
Widely considered the finest season: clear skies, comfortable temperatures and, in the north, striking autumn colour. The first week of October is Golden Week, a national holiday and the single most crowded week of the year to avoid.
Cold and dry in the north — Beijing regularly drops below freezing — mild in the south around Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and quiet and cheap almost everywhere except during Chinese New Year, when the entire country travels at once.
Worth planning around: Chinese New Year (late January to mid-February, dates vary) and Golden Week (1–7 October), when up to half a billion people travel domestically, trains sell out months ahead and prices spike everywhere.
Trip length
China's distances are large, and the high-speed rail network makes an ambitious route tempting. Two or three regions beat five spread thin.
Getting around
China's high-speed rail network is the best way to move between cities and makes the classic route effortless. Flights fill the gaps it does not reach; a car is rarely useful and rarely rented by visitors.
Sample route
Beijing and Xi'an for the imperial history, then south to Guilin's karst landscape and on to Shanghai. Covers five of the ten destinations in this guide and needs no car at all.
Culture
China is a country where hospitality, hierarchy and 'face' shape everyday interactions more visibly than in most of Europe, and where a little awareness of the basics goes a long way.
Avoid publicly criticising, contradicting or embarrassing someone, including service staff. Disagreements are better handled quietly and indirectly than head-on.
Major cities have made real progress on orderly queues at metros and attractions, but crowding and pushing still happen, especially around ticket gates. Stay calm rather than confrontational.
If you are given a small gift, business card or drink, accept it with both hands as a mark of respect, and do the same when giving one.
Dishes arrive in the centre of the table for everyone to share with chopsticks or serving spoons. Wait for the host to begin, and never stick chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice — it echoes a funeral ritual.
Restaurants, taxis and most services neither expect nor always know how to handle a tip. It is not rude to tip in tourist-facing businesses, but it is unnecessary almost everywhere else.
Ask before photographing individuals, particularly older people and in rural or ethnic-minority areas, where cameras pointed without asking are a real source of friction.
Travel tips
The things that most often catch first-time visitors out, in rough order of how much disruption they cause.
FAQ
Twelve to sixteen for a first trip. Ten to twelve covers Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai properly by high-speed rail; fourteen to eighteen lets you add a different landscape like Guilin's karst country or Zhangjiajie's sandstone pillars, which is the itinerary on this page. Five or six days is enough for Beijing and Xi'an alone, and that pairing alone justifies a trip.
It depends on your nationality and changes fairly often — China has extended unilateral visa-free entry, typically up to 30 days, to a growing list of countries including most of the EU, the UK, Australia and Canada since 2023, and a 240-hour visa-free transit for many more nationalities passing through certain cities. Always check the current rule for your passport before booking, since the list keeps expanding.
Data and calls generally work fine, but Google, Gmail, Maps, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X and most Western news and social media sites are blocked by the Great Firewall. A VPN installed and tested before you arrive is the standard fix — download it at home, since VPN sites are themselves often inaccessible once you are inside China.
Alipay and WeChat Pay dominate almost every transaction, from taxis to street food, and both now let foreign visitors link an international card directly, which takes about ten minutes to set up. Carry some cash as backup for small towns, and do not assume a foreign credit card will be accepted outside hotels and larger shops.
Mid-range travel runs about ¥700–1,200 per person per day, comparable to or slightly below Western Europe. Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are where the money goes; inland cities and rural areas are markedly cheaper for similar quality. High-speed rail is excellent value relative to its speed and comfort.
Very. Violent crime and street theft against visitors are both rare, and the country's cities are among the safest in the world to walk at night. The real risks are traffic when crossing streets and a handful of well-known tourist scams — overpriced 'tea ceremony' invitations and art-student exhibitions near major sights — rather than anything more serious.
Connectivity and payments, in that order. Set up and test a VPN before you leave home, and link Alipay or WeChat Pay to a foreign card before you land. Both take ten minutes each and solve the two problems that otherwise disrupt a first-time visitor's trip daily.
The full travel guide covers routes, budgets, regional differences and how to string these ten destinations into a trip that actually works.
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